Vitello Tonnato (Veal with Tuna Mayonnaise)

In this week's On The Side column (part 2 next Wednesday) I was being a little smug at having uncovered some of the regional food secrets of Liguria and Piedmont. I've always been fond of vitello tonnato and am describing it as a Piedmont specialty. As an aside, I have no idea why that should be. Not sure about the Genoese tuna connection. Oh, and all the recipes call for the tinned stuff. Let's move on.

Anyway I discover that there is an older recipe from Milan. Not that dissimilar, but the Milanese version is usually served hot. Some say it contains cream (but not the influential Il Cucchiaio d'Argento (The Silver Spoon) cookbook). Today's hero is served cold, and its sauce is a variation on mayonnaise. Anna del Conte attributes this to French influence.

A few thoughts before the recipe. I'm using The Silver Spoon one. I would serve this as a starter, as I find a large quantity of it a little cloying. Be careful not to add too much sauce to the veal, for the same reason. Traditional recipes use rump or topside of veal, poached with a few veg, carrot, celery, onion. If cooking it yourself, do the meat the night before and refrigerate. This will make it easier to get the ultra thin slicing which you want.

I have also made this using pork fillet. If you need to loosen the sauce, add a little vegetable oil. You probably won't need salt because of the anchovy and capers. Traditionally pepper is not used in this dish.

Ingredients

About 100g cooked veal per person, very thinly sliced;

200g tin of tuna in oil, drained; 3 salted anchovy fillets in oil, drained; 2 tbsp capers, drained and rinsed; 2 hard boiled egg yolks; about 3 tbsp olive oil; additional veg oil. juice of a lemon.

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To make the sauce, put the tuna, anchovy, capers and egg yolks into a food processor and blitz. Drizzle in the olive oil and some of the lemon juice. Check the seasoning, and leave to chill. It's normal to spoon the sauce over the meat and leave the flavours to merge*. Before serving squeeze over some more lemon juice and, if you like, top with a few capers.

At the risk of being branded a heretic, you could do a perfectly decent cheat's version of this by blitzing some ready made mayo with the tuna anchovy and capers.

*The photograph is a restaurant version which we enjoyed in Turin. It was the best part of an otherwise undistinguished meal, which will remain unreviewed.